I'll Follow You into the Dark
by fancy2na
Summary: When victory at the cost of his ally isn't a victory at all. This is an AU where Luffy dies in battle. TW: Suicide, Character deaths, and Manga Spoilers.


**TW: Suicide - I wouldn't read this if tragedy isn't your cup of tea.**

 **title and story inspiration from the song I'll Follow You Into the Dark by Death Cab for Cutie.**

 **Please forgive me for writing this.**

* * *

 _"And if he fails... I too ought to die here with him!"_

With a seismic crash that sends debris flying through the air and tremors throughout the vicinity, a final, victory determining strike is placed, and the battered bodies of Monkey D. Luffy and Donquixote Doflamingo fall gracelessly to the ground.

Law, bleeding profusely from where his arm had been torn off and haphazardly sewn back on, watches the events unfold both intently and painstakingly from the sidelines.

"Mugiwara-ya!" he calls out desperately, but when the surrounding dust settles, all he sees are the crumpled forms of the fallen in the midst of the battlefield.

 _No... no..._ Law thinks, refusing to believe the lies his eyes are telling him.

 _Not again._

Though his energy is near depletion from the dozens of bullets he's already taken, Law uses his better arm to clumsily drag himself to where his friend lies, the difficulty akin to treading through a sea of quicksand.

In the back of his perception, Law hears an ominous, albeit defeated snicker. Though clinging to life by the thinnest of threads, Joker's snide voice echoes teasingly through Law's ears. His feathered, beat up form is merely a blur in Law' peripheral as his senses hyper focus on the person before him.

He nearly collapses in his effort to pull himself to Luffy. He settles beside the boy with heaving breaths, and forces down the consuming, disheartened feeling within him. He doesn't check Luffy's pulse, nor his heartbeat.

As a doctor, he knows a dead body when he sees one.

 _Mugiwara-ya..._

Interestingly, there is a wide, brilliant smile stretched across Luffy's face, and the sight elicits a memory of something Cora-san once told him.

 _"The Will of D. will surely bring up another storm."_

Because only a true D. smiles in the face of death. It's those who inherit that will who change the world, and fabricate the beginnings of an entirely new era...

Monkey D. Luffy, like his valiant brother, and the king of the pirates himself, has brought up more than a just a mere storm.

He was the catalyst for an entire revolution.

Law cannot bring himself to cry over his ally. He's cried himself dry in his younger days. The despair he feels, however, is something that's intensified without the conventional means of escape. He reaches out his trembling hand to intertwine it with Luffy's smaller, immobile one.

He takes in the sight of their joined hands, and can't help but regret the words he permanently inked across his knuckles so long ago.

DEATH

"Everyone you love dies before you," Joker chokes out from behind him. His voice unsteady as he too lets his life slip away, like smoke into the clouds.

Law ignores his pathetic jibes, even when Joker begins to cough violently. Blood pours through his mouth and onto his mangled cape of feathers, and he wheezes and chokes until he stops abruptly.

And just like that, Law knows that Joker's life has ended too, and that therefore Cora-san has finally been avenged. This man's death was all Law had ever wanted. His entire life, it had been all that he hungered for- until the fateful day he had met one Monkey D. Luffy.

Law doesn't feel relieved or satisfied like he had always imagined. He instead feels even emptier, as Luffy's sacrifice has ripped apart his heart in two bloody halves. The agony is a thousand times more painful than what he felt kneeling before Cora-san's body all those years ago.

 _Luffy_

Law has never been able to describe the relationship that they shared. To be honest, he didn't quite understand it. Ally seems too distant a word, and friend never seemed entirely right either. Luffy had a huge ship full of friends, and so did Law, but the connection between the two captains was something completely different in nature. Something much bigger.

It was as if their lives were bound together, like a twisting of the threads of fate, orchestrated by the sheer amount of times that they've saved each other's lives again and again. It was something special and surreal.. something that Law had never expected he would be worthy of experiencing in his limited and vengeful life.

 _But this time, I couldn't save him..._

Doflamingo is dead at long last, but only at the invaluable cost of Luffy's life. Law realizes that now, without this enigmatic boy who has somehow become his very reason for living, he has nothing left.

"You'll never know how much you've done not just for me, but for the world." Law whispers into Luffy's ear, though he knows the effort is futile.

There may be people watching, certainly some of Luffy's many friends, but Law doesn't spare them a fraction of a thought as he leans forward and presses a quick kiss to the boy's bloody forehead.

"Thank you." he breathes.

It wasn't the victory kiss he had secretly dreamed of. Nothing remotely similar to one of the many scenarios he had created in the confines of his head. He had imagined Luffy giggling the entire time, standing on the tips of his toes as Law leaned down and sealed their mouths together, sharing their breaths, all while his heart fluttered in his chest like some sort of rescued maiden-

Instead there was nothing but a cold, dead body beneath him. Unresponsive and empty... a shell of the soul that had once sent him reeling in so many ways.

No, it was not at all what he had yearned for, but somehow he knew deep down in his heart that this was inevitable.

Because Joker always takes what's precious to him.

Law reaches for Kikoku and raises the sharp tip of it up against his chest, right over his swelling heart. He doesn't have the energy to activate Room, but even if he did he wouldn't.

There are voices yelling and pleading in the background, probably begging him not to do this, but Law fixedly ignores them. He is glaring at Joker, whose body is still and lifeless. He is nothing but a heap of blood-stained feathers, yet somehow Law can still hear the bastard's empty taunts.

 _"Go ahead and do it."_ Joker laughs snidely _"If you do, I will have won."_

A wave of finality washes over Law, and he can't help but feel a twisted sort of contentment.

"Who was it said that only the strong can choose the way they die?" he says, "Now look at you."

He turns back to Luffy, and thinks of how this one spontaneous yet lionhearted boy could somehow flip the entire world, including his, completely upside down in his wake.

Without an ounce of hesitation, Law plunges the blade into his chest, intent on fatal and immediate damage.

He manages a genuine smile, his first in years, as the blood and life slowly pour out of him.

 _seem's I'll follow you wherever you go, mugiwara-ya._


End file.
